Several Ways to Die Trying
by Sierra Nicole
Summary: Just what it says on the tin.  Drabbles and ficlets on the theme of die trying, featuring our favorite galaxy hoppers.
1. Divide and Conquer

**Title:** _Divide and Conquer_ (Season 4)  
**Rating:** PG-13 for on-screen death.  
**Characters:** Samantha Carter, Martouf  
150 words

He had loved her. The part of her that was Jolinar remembered loving Martouf in return, and even the much larger part that was Sam had become fond of him, as he had of her; he'd just told her so not hours before. But now the horrible truth was revealed, and she had her gun trained on him, there before her with a Goa'uld weapon in his hand.

_It's not him_, she wanted to believe, _it's the Zatarc programming_. And it was, but that didn't make things any better. He had tried to kill the President, and because he had failed he would now kill himself.

"Samantha..." he pleaded, as his traitorous fingers struggled to point the weapon at his own head.

_It's not him_, she thought again, this time trying to convince herself. She squeezed the trigger, and Jolinar cried.

Sam cried, too, as she knelt and pulled his head into her lap.


	2. Meridian

**Title:** _Meridian_ (Season 5)  
**Rating:** PG.  
**Characters:** Daniel Jackson  
200 words.

Of all the people who would do something monumentally stupid and save millions of lives, Daniel had never thought it would be him. Jack, maybe, or Teal'c; they were heroic types. Daniel was just an archaeologist who'd taken it into his head to save the Kelownans from destroying themselves. He hadn't thought about being heroic when he broke the window to the lab and jumped in to pull out their unstable reactor core. And he certainly didn't feel heroic now; laying in the infirmary pumped full of sedatives and painkillers and just waiting for the radiation to tear his insides apart.

"You can never reach enlightenment if you do not believe you are worthy," Oma had told him, and later she'd said that the only thing we can ever truly control is whether we are good or evil. Daniel supposed he was good, but it still felt like any time he tried to _do_ good, it never helped enough.

But Sam said that Jonas had changed his mind, had denounced the lie that Daniel had sabotaged their lab, and had stolen some Naquadria to bring back to Earth. And that it was because of _Daniel_.

_So maybe it made a difference, this time._


	3. Abyss

**Title:** _Abyss_ (Season 6)  
**Rating:** PG-13, for a blasé attitude about death.  
**Characters:** Jack O'Neill  
100 words.

Jack didn't know how many times he died while Baal was interrogating him. He'd lost count somewhere back... well, the truth was, he didn't know how many days he'd already been there when he stopped trying to remember. The hours all blurred together, sitting in his altered-gravity cell, waiting for them to come take him to the next session. Baal would kill him again, every time, just to bring him back again and do it all over. But every time Jack let him, it was another set of hours that _she_ would get to live. So it was worth trying.


	4. Heroes

**Title:**_Heroes_ (Season 7)  
**Rating:** PG for off-screen death.  
**Characters:** Daniel Jackson, Janet Fraiser  
200 words.

It was a horrible way to die, but Daniel supposed it was exactly the kind of death that military types hoped for: in the line of duty. And Janet was a doctor, so her "duty" meant trying to help someone. It might not even have happened if she_hadn't_ been helping Wells; she'd been too preoccupied to notice the Jaffa coming over the ridge, and to Daniel's shame, so had he. Daniel had been running the camera so Wells could say a last goodbye to his pregnant wife, while Janet tried to stabilize him. An all-too-familiar flash of light and a soft boom and Daniel hadn't thought to turn the camera off before turning to look at Janet... now the image burned into his mind was on film, too, and Bregman was trying to give the tape back to him.

"I'm not gonna use it," the reporter said with unprecedented sympathy.

But he was missing the point. True, the footage might be gruesome and heartrending, but it showed Janet being who she was, and it was the only thing Daniel could do to properly honor her memory.

"I want other people to know," Daniel said simply, and handed the tape back to Bregman.


End file.
